The Vincent Price Movie Review

aka From a Whisper to a Scream
Released in 1987
Directed by Jeff Burr

The Offspring is a horror anthology movie from the late 1980’s that Vincent Price starred in at the tail end of his career. It’s the last horror movie he made, in fact. The Offspring is in the similar vein as other horror anthologies of the 80’s like Creepshow and Tales From the Crypt which feature sordid characters and twist endings. The largest difference is that The Offspring does not offer any lighthearted black comedy; it’s gruesome and unrelenting.

The movie is made up of four separate story segments that each take place in the same town of Oldfield Tennessee, but at different periods in time. The segments are wrapped together by another story that stars Vincent Price as the narrator of the tales. Price plays Julian White, a chronicler of Oldfield’s lurid history who relates the horrible stories to a visiting journalist that is covering the execution of Julian’s niece. Even though there isn’t much of a purpose to the wrapper story besides narration, it’s kind of nice to see a horror anthology that actually ties all the separate elements together in some way.

Since each of the segments in this film have a twist ending, I will try to refrain from spoiling the fun by limiting the details of my review.

The first segment stars veteran actor Clu Gulager as Stanley Burnside, who is a creepy guy that lives with his invalid sister in their old family house. Most of the segment deals with Stanley’s desire to court one of his female coworkers, and his subsequent inability to cope with the rejection amid hints of incest. I found that I enjoyed this segment mostly due to Gulager’s portrayal of Stanley. The performance of Miriam Byrd-Nethery, his wife in the film and in real life, was equally creepy. You’ll probably be wondering what the twist ending is by the time you get towards the end of the story because nothing is really withheld from the viewer up to that point. Let me just say that this movie was made in the late 80’s during the days of the cute monster horror movies like Ghoulies and Gremlins.

Moving on…

The second segment is probably my favorite out of all four. It opens with a sleazy guy named Jesse Hardwick(Terry Kiser) being ambushed in his trailer by a couple of heavies who are shooting to kill. In his frantic escape attempt he gets shot up pretty bad, but manages to make it to a boat at the edge of a swamp. He wakes up several days later in a shack owned by a hermit who lives there in the swamp. Despite being grievously injured, he survives and learns more about the peculiar old guy who saved him. While the old hermit is out hunting for mushrooms one night, Jesse discovers a journal that leads him to believe the hermit is over a hundred years old and possesses the secret to everlasting life. After secretly watching the hermit perform some witchcraft ceremonies, Jesse believes he has found the ingredients that grant the power over death. He asks the old man to teach him the secret, but gets frustrated when the hermit seems to be only showing him phony tricks instead of the real thing. Being the treacherous degenerate that he is, Jesse tries to murder the old man and steal his potions, but you can’t murder someone who is immune to death. Jesse finds out that there are fates worst than death, however.

The third segment is a somewhat bizarre story about a group of circus freaks. The circus is run by a magic-using circus master, who actually grants the freaks’ powers. She also uses her magic as a threat against the circus workers who want to escape. The story focuses on one particular freak called the Glass Eater. This is the guy who eats glass, of course, but he also munches on nails, razorblades, and other sharp objects. After he falls in love with a young girl, the Glass Eater tries to escape from the circus to be with his lover. The circus master finds out, and decides to enact some extremely gory punishment on both of them. Let’s just say the Glass Eater certainly ate a lot of sharp objects during his tenure, but he didn’t necessarily digest all of them. The story ends on an upside: his girlfriend gets a new job at the circus.

I liked this third story the least out of the four. The acting is pretty weak.

The last segment goes back in time to the civil war period, when Oldfield was just being founded. I think the premise is interesting and somewhat terrifying. Imagine travelling to the war-torn South, and stumbling upon a small town where there are no inhabitants but children; all the adults have been killed in the war. Having witnessed the full brutality of war, the children are so traumatized and desensitized to violence that they use dead soldiers’ body parts as toys to play with. I realize this theme has been tried many times with Children of the Corn, etc, but I find this particular story has more impact because it actually could have happened. (or at least certain aspects of it)

Even though Vincent Price doesn’t have much to do in his last horror movie, I would still recommend giving it a try. Be aware that this is 1980’s horror material here…there’s definitely a cheese-factor mixed with a fair amount of gore.

If you are trying to find this on DVD it will be titled From a Whisper to a Scream.

Released in 1963
Directed by Reginald Le Borg
Written by Robert E. Kent

“whenever evil exists in the heart of man, the Horla lives…”

Diary of a Madman is a lesser known movie which Vincent Price made in 1963 between a string of his more famous Edgar Allan Poe adaptation movies. Despite being less popular, I found the movie surprisingly well-executed. The plot remains true to itself and the performances are solid.

The idea is based on a short story by Guy de Maupassant entitled “Le Horla.” This namesake creature (or being) exists in another dimensional plane, and appears from the human point of view to possess supernatural powers, such as invisibility. In the movie, the Horla states that it can access the plane that humans live in only through evil. The most powerful ability of the Horla seems to be that of human possession; the creature can take control of a human’s thoughts and actions, and even drive them to commit terrible acts of murder.

Vincent Price plays Simon Cordier, a magistrate who has sentenced a murderer to the guillotine for his crimes. Upon visiting the criminal in his cell, the man(Harvey Stephens, also starred with Price in The Bat) is rational at first and begins to explain to Simon that he committed the murders unwillingly. The criminal claims that an outside force took control of him and perpetrated the ghastly killings. Immediately following this, the entity takes control again and forces the criminal to attack Simon, who defends himself and accidently kills the criminal. The entity(Horla) then takes an interest in Simon, and begins to haunt his thoughts.

The movie continues with the Horla trying to exert its control over the willful Simon, who documents the process in his diary. Thinking he might be suffering from mental illness, he takes a hiatus from work and concentrates on his sculpting hobby to relax. He hires a beautiful young woman(Nancy Kovack - remember her in Star Trek?) to model for his latest work, and they gradually fall in love. Her husband is not too happy about this.

The Horla continues to work on Simon, and eventually gains complete control over him. Dark deeds follow soon afterwards, but Simon continues to resist and deduces a possible way to destroy the Horla. The final confrontation proves that the Horla does have a weakness after all.

Not having heard anything about this movie at all, I was expecting the worst, but instead I found myself being pleasantly surprised. While the movie does have a “low-budgetness” to it, it’s generally well done and reminiscent of the House of Wax. All of the performances are good, with Vincent Price carrying the movie. (he’s in almost every scene) The plot, like it or not, never wavers from its premise or wanders off target like so many of the low budget horror movies.

Released in 1964
Directed by Roger Corman

“and darkness and decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.”

The Masque of the Red Death is an interesting movie that finds itself in the middle of Corman’s Poe cycle. Its existential theme marks a departure from the previous Poe films, with a corresponding change in style. The movie is a combination of ideas from Poe’s short story of the same name and Hop-Frog, another one of his stories.

Vincent Price plays the malevolent Prince Prospero, who is a ruthless nobleman in medieval Europe. Prospero is evil; he openly worships Satan, and encourages his subjects to do the same. The interesting thing about the Prince is that he claims he arrived at his philosophy through empirical observation. A world with so much terror, death, war and disease could not possibly be ruled by a compassionate and loving god, but rather a god like Satan. (he might have a point there)

To please his Master, Prospero rules his subjects without mercy. He demonstrates his lack of compassion throughout the film, beginning in the opening scene where he orders an entire village burned to the ground after he witnesses a woman die from the Red Death, which is a plague that causes bleeding from the pores and can kill the infected within an hour’s time. After being insulted by two of the local villagers, Prospero orders them to be garroted, but decides to temporarily delay their executions because of the pleas of the young village girl Francesca(Jane Asher). Prospero takes all three as captives and returns to his castle, which is believed to be the only haven in the region safe from the Red Death.

As a show of generosity and power, Prospero invites the nobles from across the region to stay within his castle and remain safe from the deadly plague. Most of them come immediately, and are lavished with feasts, parties, and other entertainment from the decadent prince. In the meanwhile, Prospero courts his lovely captive Francesca, much to the dismay of his current wife Juliana(Hazel Court). The fate of the other two captives, Francesca’s father and her boyfriend, is eventually determined by Prospero. For the enjoyment of the audience, he forces the prisoners to cut themselves with a different knife alternately; one of the blades being envenomed by a deadly poison.

This deadly spectacle is not enough to satisfy the crowd’s appetite for amusement, so the Prince declares a Masque will be held at midnight. Near the end, Prospero’s power is put to a final test: Death personified comes calling at his castle in the form of a red-robed figure, and the Prince learns who the master of Death really is.

I found this film difficult to critique because it’s so unlike most of the other Poe adaptations. I enjoyed watching Price as Prospero expound his Satanic philosophy, but found the movie dragged out a bit. It’s not as scary as some of the more straightforward gothic horror movies, but it is definitely more brutal. As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, this movie is more existential in style; it ponders over the concepts of religion, power, and death, and how the common human fits in.

The script and dialog waver back and forth between excellent and perfunctory, and the performances vary accordingly. Vincent Price delivers some great lines, but has his share that fall completely flat, especially during some of the more dramatic moments. Jane Asher as Francesca was decent, but I found myself much more interested in the very dishy Hazel Court. It’s a shame she didn’t have a larger role.

It seems Corman had a bit more time and money to make this movie, and the sets reflect it. The interior of the castle is well done, and the single colored chambers add a dramatic touch, especially in the black and red room where the satanic ceremonies are held.

The avatars of Death were probably my favorite part of the movie. The costumes and the dialog were great. The scene where the avatar of the Red Death is conversing with Prospero is gripping, and the final scene where the multiple avatars of Death are discussing how many people they killed ends the movie perfectly.

The closing credits are nicely done as well. I wish they would have used those as the opening credits instead. Pretty creepy stuff there.